Kids

Gizmo813

My FI and I have decided to not invite the children of guests who are not family. Nieces, nephews and cousins are all invited. We are doing this for a number of reasons - budget being a primary one. The other being that we have friends with 5 children under 10 years old who have the nasty habit of bringing their 5 very rowdy, completely undisciplined children EVERYWHERE and then pawning them off on others to watch. We would like our friends, the parents, to be there, but do not want their children to attend. So ... we made a blanket rule that no children outside of our families will be invited.

Then, we get a message from one of FI's close HS friends from out-of-state. She has 2 small children and a husband who travels frequently and is rarely home. There are no family members remaining in our area who can babysit, one of the children has special needs and the other is an infant. So, this friend all but said that if her children are not invited, she would not be able to come. FI really wants his friend to be at the wedding, as she is one of his only friends remaining from HS that he is still in contact with. (She even suggested we check with the venue to see if he can attend for free as he has special dietary needs and would not eat at the reception - she would pack special food for him.)

I have no problem making an exception for this specific case, given the extenuating circumstances. I am unsure, however, of the fairness to the other guests, given that nobody else's children are invited. (Granted, the rest of our friends are in-state and have babysitting available.) 

Is this something I should be concerned about, or is making an exception perfectly fine on a case-by-case basis? 

Inkdancer

Case-by-case exceptions are fine. It is nobody's business why you chose to invite some kids and not others.

That said, some people will still make a stink about it. The easiest thing to do is invite in "circles": only out-of town kids, only kids of family members, etc. Since this couple with rowdy children is already pretty rude about their kids, it seems, they may say something. You do not have to justify your choice, but you can say "I'm sorry, we simply weren't able to accommodate all the people we wanted." Then leave it at that.

delujm0

I'll add that you may want to drop the fact that kids aren't invited into a regular every day conversation with these people...if they're already poor parents who can't control their children in public, but yet bring them along everywhere, they're probably the sort that will just show up with their children on the day of the wedding and feign ignorance that they weren't invited in the first place.

 

And if they're the kind of people who assume their kids are invited everywhere, as you imply above, this is doubly true.  Prepare them for this in advance.  During a normal conversation about the weddng, for example, say "so who's going to watch the kids the night of the wedding, your parents?" or something equally unassuming.  Just work it into a regular conversation.  That will save you the passive-aggressive "adding children who weren't listed on the invite to the RSVP" and other standard "WHAT DO YOU MEAN MY DARLINGS AREN'T INVITED??" resposes closer to the wedding.

KatWAG

There are at least 10 other threads going on right now on the kid/ no kid debate. Read a few of those.

To answer your question, sure you can invite the HS friends kids, but be prepared for some backlash

PrettyGirlLost

KatWAG said:

There are at least 10 other threads going on right now on the kid/ no kid debate. Read a few of those.

To answer your question, sure you can invite the HS friends kids, but be prepared for some backlash

So much this!